Navigation apps are changing all the time. Have you compared them recently?

. OnX Backcountry .

Take a look at CalTopo. Gaia’s ok, but for me, an important limitation is that it can’t print a map to a specified scale—it’s just whatever the window zooms to. I like to have a printed map and want to standardize the scale to 1:24,000, so I can get used to how the terrain looks on paper.

When I had my 5-year subscription to Gaia, I printed maps from CalTopo’s website using a free account. When the subscription expired, I jumped ship to CalTopo. It now has a good iPhone app so I can uses it offline in the backcountry as well as for printing custom maps.

CalTopo does all that you are asking for and more. I really like the ability to make my own custom slope angle and shaded relief layers using the USGS lidar data.

Another (mostly) satisfied CalTopo user here. For me it’s perfect other than 1) I would like it to orient to heads up rather than always staying north up and 2) I would love the ability to have it snap routes to trails from the iOS app.

Newcomer Goat Maps (see the thread around here somewhere) checks both of those boxes for me but lacks other features like lots of layers, slope angle shading, shading, etc. I am hopeful they continue to develop their app into a strong competitor. I find the app to be quite compelling.

I use Caltopo to print maps and plan routes.  OxBackcountry now for on device nav.  Used to use Gaia.

The custom shaded relief layers available in CalTopo are good for rugged terrain. The default, with just a single lighting point casts deep shadows in canyons. I use this two-point ruleset on an Enhanced-Multiply Blend

315 by 60
330 by 60

Tweaks are also possible on slope angle shading. The stock overlay is too intense and obscures detail, so I made a base layer that I typically stack over Mapbuilder Topo and Global Imagery at 25–30%. The ruleset—done to show cliffs and lack of walkability—is

s32-34 FFEB53-FFBB5C
s35-37 FFBB5C-FF8C70
s38-40 FF8C70-F76186
s41-43 F76186-F30A7F
s44-46 F30A7F-BF02A0
s47-49 BF02A0-AE009D
s50-90 AE009D-AE009D

If you’re a skier, you could make one with the breakpoints set to emphasize slopes where avalanches are a hazard.

Cool tips, Adrian!

Yes, all the apps on the market are changing rapidly.

People have complained that Gaia has raised prices significantly this year and it’s driving people off the platform (according to Reddit).  I agree that while their “Gaia Topo” or “Gaia Classic” map layers are very nice, I’m questioning whether it’s worth the expense, even though my subscription also gives me access to other “Outside” paywalled content.

OnX seems the new upstart on the scene, but AllTrails seems super popular due to its ease of use and accessibility (not necessarily all the bells and whistles that hard core users are looking for).   Something new I learned:  In Gaia, many back country campsites that show up on their map are clickable and can take you directly to the appropriate campsite registration page (recreation.gov, etc).  I haven’t seen this work on the desktop, but it does appear to work in the app if you correctly select the campsite and not just a waypoint/location adjacent to the campsite.

Like others, I’m a map geek and I like that in Caltopo I can print maps to a specific scale.  Gaia has better auto-routing than Caltopo but I don’t Caltopo’s unusable.

Got to admit, Gaia’s Gaia Topo is better looking than CalTopo’s MapBuilder Topo. But the inability to print maps to scale was the dealbreaker for me.

I too am a map geek. I have the CalTopo’s Desktop subscription, so I can can make my own MapBuilder custom layers.

My usual bottom layer is Woodland Shading, Typical Hydrology, no relief. On top of this goes a DEM-Based canopy layer at 15–30%. Ruleset is

t29-34 EBF3F2-ACD7D7
t35-39 ACD7D7-7CB6B6
t40-59 7CB6B6-3E9696
t60-79 3E9696-046565
t80-100 046565-046565

Then comes Global Imagery. Next, the slope angle shading and shaded relief I mentioned in my earlier post. On top are contour and roads & trails overlays.

Adrian,

Could you post a side-by-side comparison of MapBuilder Topo vs your custom layer for a typical area? I dont have the Desktop level subscription and it would be interesting to see what I’m missing.

Jeff

Compared with the the Pro subscription, my use of the Desktop features gives me the ability to (1) Make a bottom layer that’s just tints for an underlayment and (2) Make overlays that show only the features that I want to see–that’s trails and roads, but no trail mileages, ranger district boundaries, peak names, etc. The MapBuilder overlay is all or nothing.

The custom relief layer and the slope angle and canopy layers I mentioned can be done with a Pro subscription.

So here’s and example of what I get for my extra $50. The Pro map (with the campsites at Grouse and Hemlock lakes is Mapbuilder Hybid with my canopy layer at 20%, then my slope angle layer at 30%, then my two-point shaded relief at 45%.

The Desktop map is Woodland, no relief, hydro typical, my canopy at 20%, Global imagery at 30%, Slope angle at 25%, my two-point shaded relief at 75%. Then there are overlays of contours (in a slightly duller brown than CalTopo’s default) and trails without mileages.

The fun starts when printing at larger scales. At 1:24000, putting Global Imagery at more than about 30% makes the map too busy and obscures the topography. But for printing at 1:10000, I can do Global Imagery at 70% and the trees jump out at me.

BTW, I did the pdfs at a small page size to reduce the size of the upload.

I’m a map geek as that was my professional background in the early days of GPS and GIS. I’ve used Caltopo for years thanks to NFS friends that used it for work. It’s a great tool for map geeks, but the majority of hikers want live route mapping, which Gaia does well. Outside mag exec idiots raised the price so much that many users (no data yet) have left. OnX took advantage and has rapidly become popular. One thing I’ve learned is always copy your data to your computer and convert to GPX files. Gaia and others store your data in the Cloud. Lose your account for whatever reason and you lose your data. I copy my data files from Gaia, OnX, whatever, to Caltopo as GPX files. That way I have the best of both worlds. Nice thing Gaia and Caltopo do is showing

ata on different devices, phone, tablet, computer, is having all data show on any device. Like with Google Earth, there are things you can do on the computer web version that the app versions, phone, tablet, cannot do. For most of the public the simpler the better, thus AllTrails popularity. Personally, I do a lot of off-trail hiking and I want my routes to appear on whatever app I’m using. It’s a shame that Outside publishing chases greed before keeping users. Reminds me of the phone wars in the 1990s, when ATT spent far more to get new customers while doing nothing to keep the customers they had. A true sign of lunacy-insanity. IMHO.

Yes, when I was with Gaia, I found their foldering system hard to deal with, so I tended to export my tracks as gpx files to my Mac. Then I know where everything is. Also, I can clean up the tracks with Bill Modesitt’s GPXeditor.

But even with CalTopo, it’s not clear where things are, whether a track or object is attached to a particular map or not. So I still like to export to files on my hard drive.

Adrian,

Great comparison.  Thanks.

Another plug for Caltopo, and I’m speaking about the free version.  It is my favorite by far.  As far as having off-line access, I adjust the cache to max and it stores the last viewed zooms of map layer, whether that be topo, satellite, etc,., that I’ve viewed on my iphone.  I”ve used this feature for even really long hikes (200miles >).

Caltopo recently added  a  track up function, that I find very useful.   I agree about trying to find which map file has which waypoints.  Is there a way to show all waypoints and tracks (from all the maps) on one map?